Takeaways: Fairgrounds power, River Park recharge, golf battle

The new definition, not yet in standard dictionaries, refers to the points from an event or speech you should take to the bank.

The three top takeaways from North County’s week:

1. The Del Mar Fairgrounds power-sharing deal is a political finesse in progress, but it had better progress fast.

Before Gov. Jerry Brown was elected governor, the city of Del Mar was racing like Seabiscuit to buy the fairgrounds for $120 million, thus sopping up some of the state’s sea of red ink.

Well, Seabiscuit came up short, thanks to strong resistance from the fairgrounds board and Brown’s reluctance to sell state assets, but the wild ride demonstrated what everyone should have already known: Del Mar — and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Solana Beach — has an intense love-hate relationship with the fairgrounds, which can bedevil the adjacent cities without returning what they view as fair compensation.

In its salad days, Del Mar reveled in the fairgrounds, which replaced a golf course and riding stables in the middle of the San Dieguito Lagoon. Celebrities flocking to the village for racing season — Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien, Lucy and Desi — added Hollywood zest to real-estate values.

But the Caesar salad has wilted. What was once a touch of class is now considered in many respects tacky, greedy and anti-environmental.

In the heyday of Del Mar’s bid to buy the fairgrounds, former Del Mar mayor and political consultant Tom Shepard expressed the view of many when he said, “The fair board is more interested in developing the site than they are in preserving existing uses, and the impact that’s having on the river valley, the race meet and other stakeholders.”

In other words, the 22nd District Agricultural Association and its 350 events a year, including serial gun shows, are so crassly commercial they don’t reflect regional values.

Under Brown rule, something had to give. With the governor’s blessing, the fairgrounds has reached a tentative agreement with the county Board of Supervisors to jointly operate the 80-year-old attraction. The nine-member board will expand to 14, the five new seats filled either by supervisors or their appointees.

Now 9-to-5 may be a traditional work day, but it doesn’t compute as a partnership of equals. The state’s and the county’s power must come into balance, and soon, if Del Mar and Solana Beach, the cities with the greatest stakes in the lagoon’s evolution, are going to trust what looks like an exclusive, not a joint, powers authority.

2. Mayor Filner may have enemies in business and GOP circles, but he’s got a friend in the San Dieguito River Park.

Remember Enron-by-the-Sea?

For the past several years, the city of San Diego has been Deadbeat-by-the-Bay.

Beset by budget woes, Mayor Jerry Sanders declined to pay the city’s share of the San Dieguito River Park’s budget, leaving the other members of the River Park’s joint powers authority — the county, Escondido, Poway, Del Mar and Solana Beach — in the lurch.

In his recently released budget, Filner fulfilled a campaign promise and included just over $250,000 for the park, a welcome return to responsibility for the city that receives the most direct benefit from the 55-mile greenbelt connecting Del Mar to Volcan Mountain.

It may be hoping for too much for San Diego to pay another half-million to make the park retroactively whole, but in the river’s view shed anyway, Filner’s word has turned to gold while Sanders’ remains mud.

3. Escondido’s business legal eagles shooting for the golf greens?

In Olivenhain, the developer of a much-reviled housing tract hired Marco Gonzalez, one of North County’s leading environmentalists, who, among other green causes, has sued to stop coastal fireworks.

To many in old Oh-Leave-Us-Alone, Gonzalez’s betrayal was as if Clarence Darrow, the famous liberal attorney, were arguing for the death penalty.

Something akin is happening in the Hidden Valley as the new owners of the 96-acre Escondido Country Club are claiming they’re “Stuck in the Rough” (their corporate name). After closing the club, they say they need to build houses on the nearly 50-year-old golf course to make any money.

Predictably, the residents are up in arms, pledging to block what they see as a violation of a 1963 agreement with the city to keep the course as open space forever.

What’s not so predictable is the enlistment of Escondido-based partners Ken Lounsbery and Dave Ferguson to the green crusade. For years, these super-savvy land-use attorneys have carried briefs on behalf of growth, both business and civic. They help get stuff built.

In this rare case, however, they’re advising residents on how to craft an initiative that would save the 91 acres in north Escondido from the bulldozers.